But democracy must also be seen more generally in terms of the capacity to enrich reasoned engagement through enhancing informational availability and the feasibility of interactive discussions.Back to current Indonesian democracy.
1. Informational availability, yes. We have various sources of information, thanks to free press, political websites, academic freedom -to mention some of information sources.
2. Interactive discussion, yes. Thanks to facebook, comment section of blogs, email threads, free electoral campaign, presidential debate, and warm warung kopi talks among ordinary folks.
3. reasoned engagement?
Many times I feel the most unreasoned too-normative arguments come from, ironically, the chattering middle class failing to fairly grasp the bigger picture and falsely believing in knowing all s@%ts --empowered by lousy journalism.
"Many times I feel the most unreasoned too-normative arguments come from, ironically, the chattering middle class failing to fairly grasp the bigger picture and falsely believing in knowing all s@%ts --empowered by lousy journalism."
ReplyDeleteAmartya Sen -- in the same book you just reviewed -- discusses (and willing to appreciate) these sort of "too-normative" arguments, and why he turns out to call for multiplicity of interpretation, reasoning. It is a great book.
- Sonny